16 Sep 2022

Endorsing and funding research is critical in addressing pertinent issues relating to optimum mineral beneficiation across the country.

Speaking during the University of Botswana (UB) and Minerals Development Company Botswana (MDCB) science lecture and research synthesis workshop on September 13,  chancellor, Professor David Norris said research development and innovation were powered by the quad-triple relationship that existed between academia, industry, government, and civic societies.

“This is what is powering economies all over the world. We now have a new framework where we are considering even the natural environment as part of this relationship earmarked by institutional via learning,” he said.

Prof. Norris said should the industry, civic societies, academia, and government not consider the natural environment, they stood a chance of missing out on sustainable development, a fundamental goal of the United Nations agenda for 2030.

He said such a relationship had managed to put about P582 billion (AUD 66 billion) into the Australian economy per annum, whereas in the United Kingdom it generated P1.5 trillion (GBP 95 million) into the British economy.

Prof. Norris said the above should demonstrate to African countries that they were lagging in terms of benefitting from their natural resources, citing that it was highly important to forge this kind of relationship.

He said his excitement stemmed from the fact that the need for the inaugural workshop between UB and MDCB was met, adding that the reason why the country’s economy was not powered was that key stakeholders were often not involved in the research and innovation value chain.

He added that he was recently in Liberia where rubber trees were planted in vast pieces of land and all the produce was collected and shipped to Firestone in the US for manufacturing of car tyres.

Moreover, he said that all revenue generated went into the US economy, citing that even in Botswana’s minerals specifically diamonds, there was no optimum beneficiation because of a lack of closed research relationship between academia, industry, government, civic societies, and the natural environment.

Furthermore, he said the mentioned relationship should be harnessed to power the country’s economy.

MDCB chief technical officer, Mr Matthews Bagopi said the workshop should jumpstart a lot of things in terms of their thought processes in terms of the topic at hand.

He said MDCB was a government-owned business that looked after the government’s interests and investment in the mining industry locally, including getting to a point of maturity where it can hunt for an interest outside the country.

Therefore, he said their mandate was to seek investment opportunities in the mining industry meant to diversify the country’s mineral revenues. Ends